Creating Gender-Inclusive Environments

Recent research indicates that both women and men are twice as likely to hire a man than a woman, even if the woman is more qualified.   This study pertains to business hiring, but research also exists demonstrating a similar hiring and pay bias for academic jobs in the STEM fields and the stories of women in those fields provide support for those conclusions. 

Both studies indicate that the biases exist in both men and women hiring authorities.  So how does a fair-minded leader remedy this?  Will Yakowicz offers three great suggestions:

1. Make gender bias a business issue, not a women’s issue:  An organization that is choosing less qualified men over more able women is going to lose in the long run, because their talent will go elsewhere or otherwise not be fully engaged. 
2. Educate yourself (regardless of your gender) instead of asking women to change:  Women tend to under-sell their abilities, while men tend to over-sell theirs.  When women are assertive about their abilities, they are perceived negatively and penalized.  So the burden is on the leader to understand this no-win dynamic for women and compensate for it rather than asking women to brag more about themselves.
3. Look for bias in hiring policies and systems:  Many hiring authorities believe that candidates who self-promote are the best, despite what’s noted above.  It’s important that they become aware of this erroneous bias and look for other ways to identify competence and ambition.

Samuel Bacharach offers some additional tips for leading in a way that includes everyone.

Do the stories of this kind of bias match with your experiences or observations?  If you work in a female-dominated field, do you see this playing out?  

The Greatest Barrier to Success is…Success?

Most of us think that there is a direct, linear relationship between effort and success.  The more time we spend working on something, the better results we see, right?  (The term education researchers use for this is “time on task.”) Greg McKeown is a leadership researcher and teacher, and his findings call that notion into question.  In a blog post called “The Unimportance of Practically Everything” and a 5-minute video he describes the principal he’s discovered by studying some of the most successful leaders and some who are talented and hardworking but never “break through” as they should.  That concept is essentialism, or as he calls it, “the disciplined pursuit of less.”  McKeown’s findings indicate that, as he says, “the biggest barrier to success is success” because it means an increasing number of opportunities and options, which overwhelm us and take away the mental space we need to separate the essential from the inessential in our lives.  He posits that you will never accomplish what you want at home or at work unless you actively eliminate these distractions. Effort, in other words, does not equal success unless it’s spent in the most important areas.  This is not a new idea – Covey fans will think back to the “first things first” habit – but it’s an important message nonetheless.  He gives you a tip that you can get started with today and provides real-life examples of how others, like Warren Buffett, have put this idea into action.  I hope you’ll take a look.

How do you eliminate the inessential in your own life?  Have you learned to say no effectively? What stops you from paring down the list of things you spend time on?

Culture Trumps Strategy

It's often said that culture trumps strategy.  Strategist Nilofer Merchant says, "After working on strategy for 20 years, I can say this: culture will trump strategy, every time.  The best strategic idea means nothing in isolation.  If the strategy conflicts with how a group of people already believe, behave or make decisions, it will fail." This short (two minute) video explores this a bit more. 

What makes a great organizational culture?  According to the John Coleman with the Harvard Business Review, there are six things to consider:

• Vision:  A strong, clear sense of what kind of impact the organization wants to create orients all stakeholders about what’s really important.  Coleman cites examples like Oxfam’s “a just world without poverty” and The Alzheimer’s Association’s “a world without Alzheimer’s.”
• Values:  If the vision is the “what,” values are the “how.”  Values are the standards for behavior that guide the organization as it works toward its vision and purpose.
• Practices:  What good are values without the actual practices to enact them?  If my office says we value student input, but then never ask your opinion on anything, we would be failing our values.  Practices that match organization values are “walking the walk” and making the values real.
• People: Organizations with strong positive cultures are extremely selective in who they hire in order to find those candidates who are excited about enacting the values and vision of the organization.
• Narrative:  Every organization has a story and the skill and frequency with which it shares that story, both internally and externally, are important to creating culture.  An example of telling the organization’s story that Coleman cites is Coca-Cola’s World of Coke museum in Atlanta.
• Place:  The physical environment influences human behavior.  Many companies where collaboration is key situate their staff in open environments where they see each other a lot.  What does your work space say to others?

What’s the culture of your workplace?  If you are in a management position, how do you create a culture that is supportive of great work?  As a team member, how do you contribute to such a culture?